Two more years of basic education?

DO we really need two more years of basic education?

The proposal to add two more years to the 10-year basic education curriculum is not new to the education agenda. It has been discussed and debated for some time and I first came across the proposal as a member of the Congressional Commission on Education or EdCom, which was a joint-body of the Senate and the House of Representatives created in 1990 to undertake a national review and assessment of the education system in the country.

EdCom came out with a set of recommendations that, among other things, led to the restructuring of the Education department, with the creation of the Commission on Higher Education or CHED (RA 7722) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority or Tesda (RA 7796), and other measures aimed at addressing the lack of funding for education and the mismanagement of the education system.

Adding years to the education curriculum, which would require changing the entire curriculum altogether, was not stated specifically in the EdCom report.

Recently, this proposal was in the news again. Presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino batted for it, which was I think brave of him. “The Philippines has the shortest education cycle preparatory to university. Ours is 10 years, the rest of he world is 12. In short, we have a curriculum that, on paper, covers the same subject matter as the rest of the world but which we cram into 10, instead of 12 years,” he said.

Of course, he was not alone in saying this. Just a couple of days ago, a UP history and education professor, Prof. Maria Serena Diokno, said the same thing in the papers. And some business groups like the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) are in favor of the proposal because, they argue, it would make our graduates more competitive with the rest of the world.

The Philippines and Indonesia are the two most populous countries in the Asean with high unemployment rates, according to the International Labor Organization. By 2015, the Asean hopes to establish a European-style Asean Economic Community (AEC) and plans to have a free flow of goods, services, investment and skilled labor. Also, the Philippines, being a member of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), subscribes to the APEC’s “2020 Plan,” in which member-countries hope to fully liberalize trade barriers by the year 2020.

So there’s clearly a need for our education system to catch up with other countries, in order for Filipino graduates to be just as competitive, just as productive and employable as their foreign counterparts.

Aquino, as well as the members of the academe and the business community who bat for two more years—to catch up with other countries’ 12-year curriculum, or 16 counting up to the undergraduate level—are making a good argument.

But I said it was brave for a candidate to say this on an election year, much more for one who is locked in a tightly contested presidential race.

Certainly arguing for two more years in a country where most parents are harried enough to send their children to school will not win you any votes, and might even lose you a lot.

Out of five students that enter Grade 1, only three will finish Grade 6, only two out of five will finish high school, and only 10 percent of will eventually finish college, according to PBEd.

It is no mystery why the dropout rate is high. For the common Filipino who has enough problems scrounging around for the basic necessities, the cost of education is much too high, even the supposedly free education up to high school level. Two more years means additional expenses, which they could ill afford. It’s something they don’t want to hear, and certainly they wouldn’t want and wouldn’t vote for. Two more years might certainly increase the country’s dropout rate.

The other argument against is why bat for two more years when even now the government does not have enough money for education. Teachers in public schools are teaching classes of 60 to 70 students per class in two shifts because there aren’t enough classrooms. There have been instances where toilets have been converted into classrooms. The textbook-to-student ratio is atrocious. Pupils don’t even have their own textbooks. There aren’t enough qualified teachers. Instructional materials are still mostly your 50s-style plain chalk and blackboard.

So if the government doesn’t have money to fill in these deficiencies why impose two more years, which by certain estimates of the Education department itself, could easily cost the government around an additional P30 billion? Will we not have two more years of the same deficient education then?

It’s quite a problem for the next administration. You certainly need to improve the basic education of students in order to make them more adequate, employable and productive so they could help make the economy grow, but where will you find the wherewithal to do so when the government is cash-strapped?

Of course, if indeed an Aquino presidency could completely stamp out official corruption, which an Asian Institute of Management study said costs the Philippines 20 percent of its annual national budget (around P300 billion going by this year’s budget), well then the government would have money for a lot of things, including education.

But that’s a big if.

ernestboyherrera@yahoo.com –ERNESTO F. HERRERA, Manila Times